Please give a brief account of Dr. Livingstone’s life and explorations.
J. H. Rowles.
Answer.—David Livingstone was a Scotchman, born in Lanarkshire in 1817, and when a boy worked in a cotton factory. In 1840 he landed in Port Natal, Africa, as a medical missionary of the London Missionary Society, and became an associate of the Rev. Robert Moffat, whose daughter he afterward married. For sixteen years he labored earnestly in the mission work, and during that time discovered Lake Ngami (1849), and crossed the continent from the Zambesi to Loando, a journey which occupied eighteen months. While in England, in 1857, Livingstone published his “Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa.” Returning to Africa he devoted himself to exploration, and in 1865 resolved to find the source of the Nile. During the remainder of his life he was often not heard from for months, and it was during one of these protracted absences that Mr. Stanley began his travels to search for him, and found him in great destitution at Ujiji. Dr. Livingstone died while exploring the river system of the Chambeze in the belief that these were the head waters of the Nile, having reached Ulala, beyond Lake Bemba, in 1873. In 1874 his body was interred in Westminster Abbey.
SUBDIVISIONS OF GOVERNMENT SECTIONS.
Ventura, Mich.
1. In subdividing a township into sections, to what part of the township do the fractional sections belong? 2. Sections sometimes overrun or fall short in the subdivision of quarter sections into “forties” by the County Surveyor: Is this overplus or deficit divided equally among the “forties,” or is it all thrown into one side?
Charles Owens.
Answer.—1. The sections on the northern and western boundaries of a township are fractional—i. e., they do not contain exactly 640 acres. The small fragments of these fractional sections are called “lots,” and they are numbered from 1 upward in each section. 2. The course that surveyors are directed by the regulations of the General Land Office to pursue in the subdivision of sections is to run straight lines from the quarter section corners established by the United States survey to the opposite corresponding corners, and the point of intersection of lines so run will be the common corner to the several quarter sections, or, in other words, the legal center of the section. In the subdivision of fractional sections, where no opposite corresponding corners have been or can be fixed, the subdivision lines should be ascertained by running from the established corners due north, south, east, or west lines, as the case may be, to the water-course, Indian boundary line, or other external boundary of such fractional section. Where the lines marked in the field by the United States Deputy Surveyors are not due north and south or east and west lines, “mean courses” must be adopted. Where there is no opposite section line the subdivision line must be run parallel to the section line that is marked. The purpose is to divide the overplus or deficit arising from the unavoidable irregularities and errors of the United States survey as nearly equal as possible among the minor subdivisions of the section.